33£ ADVANCING ORGANIZATION IN AMERICA
has been fully illustrated. Every step of the way up
to the present system which, I think, we regard almost
unanimously as an advance and a gain, as we look
back upon it, has been contested. The advancing
organization draws together and consolidates, provided
its action is not so abrupt and harsh as to provoke
rebellion and disruption. In every case it produces a
more prompt civil reaction. By this we mean that
there is a more prompt obedience to authority, greater
punctuality in the performance of legal duties, and
greater exactitude in the co-operation of institutions
and persons who are called upon by the civil authority
to perform civil functions for the good of the state*
This means greater discipline and less liberty.
Here I use the word "liberty" in its primary sense:
a status in which there are no restraints on the self-
determination of the individual. That liberty is, of
course, never more than relative, for there are restraints
wherever there are any institutions, customs, or laws
at all. Therefore this kind of liberty, if an attempt is
made to realize it against laws and institutions, is
anarchistic. I shall refer to it sometimes in speaking
of the later history as anarchistic liberty.
No men on earth have ever been as free to do as
they pleased as these American colonists were. Savage
men are not free to do as they please and may be dis-
missed from comparison; civilized men in the Old
World were born into a society already olcf; here, how-
ever, were civilized men who, after they had secured a
footing, were limited by the very least restraint of any
kind which can exist in human life. The fetters which
they laid on themselves in accordance with their religious
dogmas were no doubt a good thing, for otherwise there
would have been no discipline at all, and for human